1. Field
A laundry treating apparatus having a door opening/closing a laundry introduction opening of a main body and a method of fabricating the door of the laundry treating apparatus is disclosed herein.
2. Background
A laundry treating apparatus (or a clothes treating apparatus) may include an apparatus for washing laundry, an apparatus for drying laundry, and an apparatus for washing and drying laundry. In the laundry treating apparatus, washing the laundry may refer to removing contaminants stuck on the laundry through operations of water and detergent, and drying the laundry may refer to removing moisture contained in the laundry through a hot air supply device provided in the laundry treating apparatus.
A general laundry treating apparatus may include a main body defining an outer appearance and having a laundry introduction opening, a laundry accommodating unit or space provided in the main body, a driving unit to rotate a drum which includes the laundry accommodating unit, a door to open and close the laundry introduction opening, and a control unit or controller to output visual information related to strokes processed in the laundry treating apparatus to a user and receiving the user's input.
In the general laundry treating apparatus, the door may open and close the laundry introduction opening and allow the user to see the inner laundry accommodating unit. Also, the control unit is typically installed at the main body, and provided with a plurality of buttons or knobs for briefly outputting only a pre-decided stroke in an On/Off manner and manipulating such brief output. The separate configuration of the door and the control unit may interfere with a simple appearance of the laundry treating apparatus, and input and output interfaces between the laundry treating apparatus and the user may be inconvenient.
Accordingly, studies on providing a control unit on a door and implementing the control unit as a touch screen are undergoing. The related technologies are disclosed in Korean Patent Laid-Open No. 10-2011-0130089 (Published on Dec. 5, 2011) and Korean Patent Laid-Open No. 10-2015-0006264 (Published on Jan. 16, 2015) whose disclosures are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety. However, the related art including those Patent Publications has not disclosed an alignment between a door cover and a touch sensor and an alignment between the touch sensor and a display module.
In order to configure a touch screen on a door, a touch sensor and a display module may be arranged at a light-transmissive region (transparent region) of a door cover in a corresponding (or aligning) manner. Specifically, when the touch sensor is separately fabricated from the display module and attached to a rear surface of the door cover, the touch sensor should be attached at an accurate position on the door cover in order to ensure reliability of the touch screen.